I think this prayer is too well constructed for the order to be coincidental, but even if it was not the original author's intent, I believe the Holy Spirit used the order to help remind me, and thereby remind you of some important semantics. The semantics are about what we are called to be and do. What exactly is the great commission? In recovery you'll hear phrases like attraction rather than promotion, in an attempt to keep from pushing people away by trying to shove the program of recovery down their throats. There is no proselytization allowed in the traditions of most Twelve Step programs, and yet the common understanding of a practice known as twelve stepping is to go to someone in the chains of bondage and say something to the effect of I've been where you are, done what you can't stop doing, and this is what it was like, what happened to me and what it's like now. If you want a way out and what I have, I have a solution.
Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. This is the original wording of Step 12 from back when there was only one Twelve Step Program rather than the many we have today. Obviously we are to share the solution that caused us to wake spiritually and help others to wake up and be free. It's not whether or not we share solution as much as how. I share what it was like then vs. what it's like now and let you decide. If you want what I have I'll tell you how I got it. If you don't want to do what I did, I'll move on to someone I can help. The seeds that are sown today may blossom and be harvested by another years down the road. Or they might not be.
It's not that I don't care, but making the seed of belief grow is not my job. My life works better when I leave my god suit in the trash and let God be God. He does His part, and I do what He tells me to do Sometimes I fail at that, but when I get it right my life is better. Part of getting that right is knowing certain things are never my job. Making you or anyone believe is one of those things that is never my job, or yours either for that matter.
Matthew 28 tells us to make disciples, not make them believe. The gospel of Mark says preach the gospel. The gospel is the good news that God loves you, and He does so to such an extent that He sent Jesus to die in your place, to set you free and to heal your broken heart and give you an abundant life worth living. Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today, interceding on your behalf so that His rightness and perfection will be counted as yours in place of your wrongness and imperfection and that His power will become your power so that you can have relationship with God and walk with Him. That's the good news we are to share with the world. There is freedom and life freely available to all because of the love of God and the life, death and life again of Jesus.
Those who respond to that message by wanting more, by loving God back, by saying yes, those are the ones that Matthew says make disciples of. Making someone a disciple is like taking someone through the steps, it only works if they are willing and have a heart to do it. Why does this matter? And why am I going off on a rant here about the great commission and step 12 instead of expounding on what it means to be an instrument of peace by sowing faith where there is doubt?
Well, I will go into that faith in place of doubt aspect tomorrow, but today I felt the need to address where many of our minds go when the idea of sowing faith is raised. Many of the worst offenses and some of the worst damage done in the name of and history of Christianity occurred when people got Matthew and Mark's instructions wrong because they tried to spread the faith of Christianity as the solution and salvation of the soul and of the world. They got the faith of Christianity confused with the gospel. So they tried to force faith and, lacking that, a confession of faith.
No, faith is not the answer, the solution or our salvation. Jesus is. The answer is the love of God which enables us to love Him in return and to be reconciled with Him. It matters because if you remember that we are to love as He loves and pardon as He pardoned and that out of the seeds of love and forgiveness the fruit of faith is born, you'll never choke someone to death trying to shove faith down their throat. No one would ever believe that a sword is the way to demonstrate love and pardon.
Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
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